PORTUGAL has vowed to welcome Britons and protect the rights of the estimated 45,000 UK citizens living in the country after Brexit - and has called on Britain to return the favour for their citizens.

Portugal’s interior minister Eduardo Cabrita said Brits will be welcome in his country after Brexit (Image: Getty)

They say even in the event of a no-deal Brexit, they do not want barriers between the two countries and insist Brits can continue to rely on their country as a place of work, study, holiday and residency.

Setting out contingency plans which will come into effect if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal on March 29, Portugal’s foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva said his country will remain open regardless of the Brexit outcome.

He said: “We are deciding these things unilaterally and we expect the United Kingdom to respond in the same way.”

While nearly 22,500 UK citizens registered as permanent residents in Portugal in 2017, the British Embassy puts the figure at 45,000.

The British are welcome in Portugal as residents, as tourists, as investors, as students.

Augusto Santos Silva

The Portuguese government and the embassy are running awareness campaigns to encourage Britons to register before Brexit day.

There are an estimated 300,000 Portuguese living in the UK.

While Theresa May’s no-deal policy paper released in December contains similar plans, they have not been formally adopted.

The government has said the rights of EU citizens in the EU will remain unchanged until the end of 2020 and from 2021 they will be able to stay if they have secured settled status.

Mrs May met with Portugal's PM Antonio Costa last year to discuss post-Brexit plans (Image: Will Oliver/Pool via Bloomberg)

Mr Santos Silva said he remains hopeful of a deal being pushed through in time for the Brexit deadline.

He said: “We don’t want to put this contingency plan into action. We hope the agreement comes into force and all this work becomes useless.”

Portugal’s interior minister Eduardo Cabrita said tourists would not require visas post-Brexit as he sought to keep his country on the radar of the estimated three million British holidaymakers who arrive each year.

He said: “The British are welcome in Portugal as residents, as tourists, as investors, as students.